The invention is directed to the field of telephony, and more particularly to the advantageous use of the sounds provided to a telephone speaker.
When people talk on the telephone, they sometimes become so involved in a telephone conversation that they lose track of time. It is not uncommon for a party on a telephone conversation to suddenly remember an important event and abruptly declare to the other party something along the lines of xe2x80x9cSorry, I just remembered X, I have to go.xe2x80x9d At which point the conversation will terminate by the party hanging up the party""s telephone. xe2x80x9cXxe2x80x9d can be anything from picking up one""s child at the bus stop, to watching a favorite television show, to turning off the oven before dinner is burned.
If the party is fortunate, the memory of the important event occurs in time for the party to take corrective action with no significant or catastrophic consequences. For example, the party may arrive at the bus stop just in time to collect the party""s child, or the party may be able to turn off the oven before the dinner is ruined. Sometimes, however, the party""s recollection of the event is too late, and the consequences can range from merely inconvenient to severe. There is a need, therefore, for a method and apparatus to alert a party involved in a telephone conversation to the time of day, the occurrence of an important event, or the upcoming occurrence of an important event.
This need is met by providing an audible signal associated with an event as part of the audio path of the telephone. In particular, a telephone according to one embodiment of the invention includes a microphone adapted to receive audible signals from a user and to convert the audible signals to electrical signals for transmission to a distant party, and a speaker adapted to receive electrical signals associated with input from the distant party and to convert the electrical signals to audible signals. According to the invention, the telephone also includes a processor adapted to produce electrical signals associated with an external event, and to integrate these electrical signals with the received electrical signals.
In an alternative embodiment according to the invention, a method of alerting a party to a telephone conversation of an external event includes the step of providing an indication of the external event to the party from a speaker of the telephone during the telephone conversation. The external event can be a time of day, for example, and the indication can be a distinctive chime or an announcement of the time.